Half-Minute Hero is NOT the title of a porno with a very small budget. It actually had a modest budget and most characters stayed clothed. What Half-Minute Hero is, is a speed RPG/RTS (Real Time Strategy)/Shooter/exercise in affectionate satire. It’s a frantic, multi-mode, 8-bit foray into a seemingly stereotypical RPG that will test your skills against the clock and probably make you wonder how wearing a “Charisma Wig” and “Swimming Goggles” can possibly help you save the world.

30 seconds may not seem like enough time to save the world, let alone play an entire game, but Half-Minute Hero promises to deliver a true time challenge…over the course of many-many stages, modes, bosses and maps. (Over 20 hours of gameplay and each mode contains 30-50 distinct stages to be exact.) So fear not, brave player. For a 30 second game it’s decidedly more meaty than the title implies.

There are four main adventures in all:

The main mode, Hero Mode, is a speed RPG complete with leveling up, weapon/armor collecting and saving the world, all in 30 second episodes. In this mode you play as the unlucky traveler who strives valiantly to vanquish evil before the world is destroyed…and before the Time Goddess REPOs everything but your undies.

Evil Lord Mode is an RTS game that employs a ‘chain-system’ of summoning monsters to complete stages. Similar to paper-rock-scissors, the chain-system allows monsters summoned by the player to tackle enemies based on their characteristics. In this mode the player will take control of an evil lord so gorgeous that all are driven to madness at a single glance of his perfect ivory skin.

Princess Mode features fast shoot-em-up-style gameplay and the heartwarming tale of a girl and a crossbow that can punch holes in a mammoth. Several mammoths even.

Knight Mode puts the player in the position of a less-than-bright (but ever so earnest) bodyguard who must protect a character known as the Sage until a special spell that destroys all evil can be cast. As we like to say, “He tries a lot…and dies a lot.”

Half-Minute Hero is now shipping in North America for $29.99 exclusively for the PSP.